BABESIA-BOVIS - GENOME SIZE, NUMBER OF CHROMOSOMES AND TELOMERIC PROBE HYBRIDIZATION

Pulsed field gel electrophoresis of intact chromosomes of Babesia bovi s revealed four chromosomes in the haploid genome. A telomere probe, d erived from Plasmodium berghei, hybridised to eight SfiI restriction f ragments of genomic B. bovis DNA digests indicating the presence of fo ur chromosomes. A small subunit (18S) ribosomal RNA gene probe hybridi sed to the third chromosome only. The genome size of B. bovis is estim ated to be 9.4 million base pairs. The sizes of chromosomes 1, 2, 3 an d 4 are estimated to be 1.4, 2.0, 2.8 and 3.2 million base pairs, resp ectively. (C) 1997 Australian Society for Parasitology. Published by E lsevier Science Ltd.